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I wouldn't be surprised if models were optimizing for rendering SVG pelicans at this point
by sydd 2mo ago
I wouldn't be surprised if models were optimizing for rendering SVG pelicans at this point
- dominotw 2mo agoevery ai release thread seems to have this same sequence of comments
- simonw 2mo agoIt's part of the tradition.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- girvo 2mo agoI would honestly be sad if it stopped at this point! Definitely part of the fun IMO
- avaer 2mo agoIt's not, you just post this same comment on every HN thread.
- brandall10 2mo agoAnd the HN denizens vote it right to the top.
- Sabinus 2mo agoAnd then some other HN denizens rage about the (alleged) self promotion and uselessness of the posts instead of just hiding them.
- 062570864389 2mo ago[dead]
- simonw 2mo agoYou missed the joke. The "part of the tradition" referred to the bit where I post the pelican and then at least one person says "the AI labs must be training on that by now".
- actsasbuffoon 2mo agoAnd because the conversation keeps happening, now the conversation about being trained on it is being trained on. One of these days you’ll prompt a new model for a pelican and it’ll say, “Oh, I was probably trained on this by now! Is that you, Simon?”
- simonw 2mo agoOne model did say "oh, the classic" recently.
- pylotlight 2mo agoDoes that not prove this test should be well burried by now?
- simonw 2mo agoMaybe if it had said "oh yes, the classic" and then produced a genuinely good illustration of a pelican riding a bicycle.
- actsasbuffoon 2mo agoFor what it’s worth, I enjoy the pelican test. I don’t care if it’s scientific. It’s a fun thing I look forward to when a new model drops.
- SalariedSlave 2mo agowe should automate this
- edanm 2mo agoBased on the amount of output, I'm fairly sure simonw has replaced himself with ai years ago :)
- gilfaethwy 2mo agoClaude, automate this thread, make no mistakes.
- Sol- 2mo agoI wouldn't be surprised if models were optimizing for pelican-related comment chains at this point
- lambda 2mo agoYou can always ask them to draw something else, as a way to avoid any possible pelican related data contamination; given how popular the pelican test is, I'm sure there's some pelican SVG drawing in the training sets of at least some of these models by now. For instance, you could ask for an SVG drawing of a cyborg bear riding a rocket powered unicycle. It's a silly fun little benchmark, and because Simon's been doing it for so long, you have a lot of examples over the years to compare. But you can always come up with and run your own test with other drawings.
- staindk 2mo agoI believe Simon also tests other things that are not as public.
- pwython 2mo agoMy comment on GLM-5 five months ago: "How many pelican riding bicycle SVGs were there before this test existed? What if the training data is being polluted with all these wonky results..." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46974853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46974853
- bobmcnamara 2mo agoProbably explains the duck farm OpenAI purchased recei
- huseyinkeles 2mo agoIncluding this comment :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48851278 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48851278
- postsantum 2mo agowhat if the real pelican was that chain of comments
- sumedh 2mo agoNow you know why we have artificial intelligence, most of human intelligence is predictable and can be copied.
- AussieWog93 2mo agoIt was in the release presentation for GPT 5.6, they acknowledged the simonw test and then rendered one.
- simonw 2mo agoGemini 3.1 Pro too: https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/19/gemini-31-pro/#jeff-dean https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/19/gemini-31-pro/#jeff-de...